Understanding User Responses to Information Technology: A Coping Model of User Adaptation1

This paper defines user adaptation as the cognitive and behavioral efforts performed by users to cope with significant information technology events that occur in their work environment. Drawing on coping theory, we posit that users choose different adaptation strategies based on a combination of primary appraisal (i.e., a user’s assessment of the expected consequences of an IT event) and secondary appraisal (i.e., a user’s assessment of his/her control over the situation). On that basis, we identify four adaptation strategies (benefits maximizing, benefits satisficing, disturbance handling, and self-preservation) which are hypothesized to result in three different individual-level outcomes: restoring…